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Today In Criminal Justice
Women Shortchanged by Justice Reforms: Report
Orlando Prosecutor Refuses to Pursue Death Penalties
Sessions, Facing Budget Cut, Won’t Promise to Help Chicago
Trump Would End Aid to Jail Undocumented Immigrants
Internal Data Undercut Arguments for Trump Travel Ban
CA Chief Justice to ICE: Stop 'Stalking' at Courthouses
U.S. Lacks Effective System to Find Homegrown Terrorists
Want to Buy A Former NY Prison? It's a Tough Sell
Senators Seek Opioid Fee to Aid Treatment
Navajo Officer’s Death Shows Dangers in Remote Areas
Silicon Valley Cultural Mix Poses a Policing Challenge
Dallas Reports Progress In Solving Spurious 911 Call Issue
Facial Recognition Systems Pushed as Crime Prevention
NY Inmate Says Gov. Cuomo Inspired His Beating
Top Story
Women Shortchanged by Justice Reforms: ReportCriminal justice reform has not helped women to the same extent that it has benefited men, says a study from the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College. Drawing from women’s experience at Rikers Island, the report argues that reform should be trauma-informed and gender-responsive to account for women’s unique needs. The Crime Report Orlando Prosecutor Refuses to Pursue Death PenaltiesIn a startling denunciation of capital punishment in a state with one of the largest death rows, the new chief prosecutor in Orlando said her office would no longer seek the death penalty, the New York Times reports. The decision by State Attorney Aramis Ayala of the Ninth Judicial Circuit could have widespread repercussions in Florida if other prosecutors follow suit. Nationwide, support for the death penalty has steadily declined, along with the number of executions. In Florida, years of litigation and legislative maneuvering have left the capital punishment system in turmoil. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi called Ayala’s decision a “blatant neglect of duty,” and Gov. Rick Scott removed her from a case involving an Orlando police officer’s death.
Florida has not carried out any executions since January 2016, and the state has 381 prisoners on death row. Twenty-two of them were convicted in Orange or Osceola Counties, in Ayala’s jurisdiction. Ayala said the death penalty had failed as a deterrent and that it did nothing to protect law enforcement officers. She also cited the length of time between sentencing and execution, which often exceeds a decade, and the costs of capital cases. “Punishment is most effective when it happens consistently and swiftly,” she said. “Neither describe the death penalty in this state.” On Tuesday, Ayala’s spokeswoman said the office was seeking death sentences in six cases. By yesterday, the office had reversed its stand, throwing into question the potential punishment in a high-profile case against Markeith Loyd, who the police said killed his pregnant ex-girlfriend and then gunned down an officer, Lt. Debra Clayton, as she tried to apprehend him. New York Times Sessions, Facing Budget Cut, Won’t Promise to Help ChicagoChicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions for more financial help at a time of runaway violence, but Sessions was noncommittal, saying he didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep at a time of proposed cuts to the Justice Department, the Chicago Tribune reports. Johnson was among several chiefs from mostly big-city departments who talked to the nation’s top law enforcement official about how the federal government can help them fight gun violence on their streets. Chief J. Thomas Manger of Montgomery County, Md., president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said the meeting with Sessions lasted close to an hour and was “substantive.”
Sessions noted that his budget for the next fiscal year had been cut and that he didn’t want to promise anything he couldn’t deliver. After briefing Sessions on Chicago’s violence woes, Johnson called for the addition of more federal prosecutors to help prosecute cases of felons in possession of illegal handguns. “The superintendent said for a city that’s leading headlines with challenges of gun violence, we have one of the lowest federal prosecution rates in the country and that shouldn’t be,” said Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, who also attended the meeting. “The meat and potatoes of what was discussed was bad guys with guns are wreaking havoc in American cities, and the federal government certainly needs to help local entities set an example in a culture of accountability for those repeat offenders.” Chicago Tribune Trump Would End Aid to Jail Undocumented ImmigrantsPresident Trump proposed a massive $4.8 billion increase in spending yesterday to combat illegal immigration, but his plan includes a cut that stuns some local law enforcement officials: Department of Justice grants that help pay for jailing undocumented immigrants, reports USA Today. Throughout his campaign, Trump said he would help local communities enforce immigration laws and vowed to punish those that didn’t (“sanctuary cities”) by withholding federal funds. Yet his budget would eliminate the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which would deny aid to localities that help enforce his ramped-up deportation program. The move would save the federal government $210 million this year.
That proposal came as a shock to officials in Miami-Dade County, which became the first jurisdiction to shed its “sanctuary city” status by complying with Trump’s immigration authorities. Mayor Carlos Gimenez ordered his jail to honor all requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to detain undocumented immigrants, a controversial move that led to sweeping protests in a county where a majority of residents are foreign-born. “We are concerned,” said Michael Hernandez, a spokesman for the mayor. “We’ve been a good partner with federal immigration authorities. We expect them to be good partners with us.” The grants reimburse local jails for detaining for at least four days undocumented immigrants who committed one felony or two misdemeanors. Since 2000, the program has provided aid to hundreds of local jails. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the budget proposes other ways to help local officials. “We increased the amount of money for detention facilities for folks who come into the country illegally,” he said, referring to a $1.5 billion increase in spending to expand federal detention facilities, transportation and deportation of undocumented immigrants. Local officials said none of that new money will help pay for all the undocumented immigrants who end up in their jails. USA Today Internal Data Undercut Arguments for Trump Travel BanAt least two sets of internal data that have been available to the Trump administration but that have never been publicized appear to undercut the government’s argument for a travel ban that it had hoped would take effect yesterday, the Washington Post reports. One report, “Most Foreign-Born US-Based Violent Extremists Radicalized After Entering Homeland,” analyzed 90 cases involving suspected or confirmed foreign-born terrorists, finding that most of them probably embraced extremist ideology after they arrived in the U.S., not before. Another report, drawn on classified FBI data, has been used by the Trump administration to bolster its claims that refugees pose a risk of terrorism. The figures that are the basis for that report undermine a key premise of the travel ban, with most of the suspects cited in the report coming from countries unaffected by President Trump’s executive order.
Taken together, the two reports show there is a significant amount of internal government data that suggests the travel ban Trump wants to implement is not likely to be effective in curbing the threat of terrorism in the U.S. White House spokesman Michael Short said the justification for the travel ban is “not in any way diminished by these selective and potentially criminal leaks being carried out by disgruntled government officials. The president is 100 percent committed to keeping this country safe from terrorism, and that’s exactly what this order will help achieve.’’ The new travel ban did not take effect yesterday, after a federal judge in Hawaii issued a freeze of the executive order hours before it would have temporarily suspended the admission of new refugees and barred the issuance of new visas to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Washington Post CA Chief Justice to ICE: Stop 'Stalking' at CourthousesCalifornia Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye told federal immigration officials to stop “stalking undocumented immigrants” at California courthouses, the Sacramento Bee reports. Cantil-Sakauye said she was “deeply concerned” that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are seeking out undocumented immigrants for deportation at courthouses and courtrooms from San Francisco to Los Angeles. “Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our country’s immigration laws,” she told U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. “Enforcement policies that include stalking courthouses and arresting undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom pose no risk to public safety, are neither safe nor fair ... I respectfully request that you refrain from this sort of enforcement in California's courthouses.”
The statement comes as Cantil-Sakauye is organizing a court “working group” to provide information and legal resources to immigrants. She initiated it on Feb. 1 in response to media reports and direct reports from judges and lawyers that undocumented people are increasingly being targeted by immigration officials. Sacramento Bee U.S. Lacks Effective System to Find Homegrown TerroristsOn his way to planting an explosive in a New York City alley last September, suspected bombmaker Ahmad Rahimi stumbled into a deep hole in the U.S. system of safeguards against domestic terrorist attacks, reports the Washington Post. The Elizabeth, N.J., resident had twice come under scrutiny by the FBI because of reported extremist views and suspicious travel overseas. Investigators found no grounds for arresting him, and they lacked alternative measures for maintaining surveillance or influencing the Afghan immigrant’s behavior. That gap is the subject of a new report that warns of a serious flaw in U.S. defenses against homegrown terrorism: the lack of an effective system for finding, redirecting and rehabilitating Americans who may be on a path to violent extremism. Unless such a system is put in place, the report says, law enforcement officials will be left to try to prevent attacks only after the would-be terrorist becomes operational.
The report is based on a year-long study commissioned by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank. The report urges federal backing for an array of programs that would seek to prevent radicalization from taking root in local communities, as well as measures to identify and help people already on a path toward radicalism. The proposed remedies would mostly take place outside the criminal justice system while maintaining a strong “connective tissue” with law enforcement so that police can be forewarned if someone appears on the brink of committing violence, it says. The study’s release comes as the Trump administration is conducting a formal review of federal programs that focus on countering violent extremism (CVE). Current efforts have drawn criticism from lawmakers as well as some senior Trump aides. Matthew Levitt, a former FBI counterterrorism analyst and a co-author of the study, said past U.S. administrations have been slow to embrace community-based approaches that some politicians see as “soft.” The resulting absence of comprehensive strategy has allowed dangerous people to slip under the radar screen, he said. Washington Post Want to Buy A Former NY Prison? It's a Tough SellPerched atop an Adirondack mountain, a 325-acre site for sale seems to have everything a developer could want: spectacular views, a man-made lake, and proximity to the tourist destination of Saratoga Springs. The property on Mount McGregor was also a New York state prison, and if history is any guide, it will be a tough sell, the Associated Press reports. States have found out the hard way that stunning views and good locations are not enough to overcome the baggage that comes with former prison sites. Massive, thick-walled cell blocks, dormitories and infirmaries tend to be too expensive to tear down and too restrictive to turn into viable enterprises.
At least 22 states have closed or announced plans to close 94 state prisons and juvenile facilities since 2011, and only a handful have been sold or repurposed, says The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform advocacy group. “This is new territory in a lot of respects,” said the group’s Nicole Porter. “This will require some creativity from developers for what to do with these spaces.” Mount McGregor Correctional Facility, on the market for a second time in two years, is among 13 prison and incarceration camps in New York that have closed since 2011. Only four have been sold. A few states have seen successes. In Virginia, a former District of Columbia prison built in the 1920s has been sold to Fairfax County, which is overseeing redevelopment that will include more than 270 single-family homes, townhouses and apartments. In Tennessee, the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, closed in 2009, is being turned into a whiskey distillery and tourist attraction. Associated Press Senators Seek Opioid Fee to Aid TreatmentWith money tight and the opioid epidemic continuing, Connecticut’s U.S. senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats, are proposing a new way to create as much as $1 billion for addiction treatment, the Hartford Courant reports. They want a fee of 1 cent per milligram of active opioid be added to prescriptions. The money would go to treatment. “We have to start thinking out of the box in terms of getting the necessary funding to combat this crisis,” Murphy said. “The amount of money states and the federal government are putting into opioid treatment now simply isn’t doing the job.”
“There are a lot of prescriptions out there, so this tiny fee, when you apply it to every pain medication, ultimately garners a billion a year,” Murphy estimates. The proposed bill, dubbed the LifeBOAT Act, comes at a time in which Connecticut, like other states, has seen a steady increase in the number of fatal overdoses, attributed largely to opioid abuse. The chief medical examiner showed that those deaths increased for a fifth year in a row. In 2016, heroin played a role in 504 deaths. The money collected if the bill passed would be distributed in the form of grants that would fund efforts including establishing new treatment facilities, expanding access to long-term, residential programs, and recruiting and training mental health providers who provide substance abuse treatment. Hartford Courant Navajo Officer’s Death Shows Dangers in Remote Areas On Sunday, Navajo police officer Houston Largo faced gunfire alone on a dark New Mexico road en route to a domestic violence call on the eastern edge of the largest American Indian reservation. The 27-year-old was found critically wounded, on the ground bleeding about 50 yards from the vehicle he had stopped. He was flown to an Albuquerque hospital, where he died, the Associated Press reports. Amber Kanazbah Crotty of the Navajo Nation council said, “The violence we are seeing is showing our officers are not only stretched thin, but they also are facing challenges with the vastness of the area.” The Navajo Nation covers 27,000 square miles in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah where tribal officers patrol the rural roads alone. That can leave them without backup during a life-or-death situation, especially in circumstances where the nearest fellow officer is more than an hour away.
Tribal jurisdictions across the West often cover sweeping, remote areas that are larger than some U.S. states, but with far fewer police. Largo’s death has renewed focus on the dangers that Indian Country’s remote landscapes can pose for officers both within the Navajo Nation’s chronically understaffed police department and on remote reservations from the Dakotas to the Southwest. A high volume of domestic violence calls adds another layer of danger for officers on many reservations. Such calls are considered the most deadly for police. More than half of Native American women and nearly half of men surveyed by the National Institute of Justice said they had experienced physical violence by a partner. The Navajo Nation, home to more than 175,000 people, has fewer than 250 patrol officers and investigators. The officers responded to more than 4,600 domestic violence calls in 2015. Associated Press Silicon Valley Cultural Mix Poses a Policing ChallengeSilicon Valley, a region that attracts a diverse population because of its thriving tech sector, faces the question of how its mix of cultures might change local policing, NPR reports. Stanford researchers found that Oakland police officers were more likely to handcuff, search and arrest African-American men than any other group. The Justice Department said the San Francisco Police Department disproportionately targets people of color. In San Jose, media reported disparate treatment by police of African Americans and Latinos, leading to a federal lawsuit. Bay Area residents are almost a quarter Hispanic or Latino, a quarter Asian, and markedly foreign-born (30 percent).
In Menlo Park, home to Facebook, police commander Dave Bertini says, “It’s important that we try with all our might to hire people who are mirroring our communities. You’re dealing with people of different cultures, different backgrounds, different experiences, who perceive things differently.” All California officers are required to undergo cultural diversity and discrimination training as part of the police academy, which includes understanding the cultural composition of the state and discussing the impact of racial profiling. Experts say relying too heavily on using the demographics of a population to monitor police behavior is not ideal, doing so can be helpful for residents to feel represented in how and by whom they are being policed. “When law enforcement can’t figure out what’s going on in a given situation, when they can’t relate to and engage with folks, then you’re much more likely to have escalation during a conflict or during an encounter — and you’re going to have lack of trust,” said Phillip Atiba Goff of the Center for Policing Equity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. NPR Dallas Reports Progress In Solving Spurious 911 Call IssueT-Mobile engineers and Dallas say they’ve made “significant progress” in figuring out why the Dallas 911 call center has been so bogged down by spurious calls, reports the Dallas Morning News. City spokeswoman Sana Syed said complex technological issues have helped create a debacle that has correlated with at least two deaths. What remains unclear is who shares in the blame and whether the problem is fixed. T-Mobile has made technological upgrades that officials declined to elaborate on for security reasons. City officials plan to make their own changes, including the addition of a dozen call takers a day until the issues are resolved.
Engineers and executives from T-Mobile flew into the city after WFAA-TV reported that a baby sitter had trouble reaching 911 when a 6-month-old boy named Brandon needed medical assistance. The sitter was left on hold for 30 minutes. Brandon later died. When two T-Mobile executives took part in a news conference Wednesday, Dallas Voice reporter David Taffet said that his husband, Brian Cross, 52, was dying while Taffet was on hold with 911 for about 20 minutes. At first, city officials blamed a “ghost call” problem coming from T-Mobile phones. City officials had said the phones appeared to be calling 911 multiple times, flooding the queue and leaving hundreds of callers on hold. Dallas Morning News Facial Recognition Systems Pushed as Crime PreventionAt a MotoMart convenience store in St. Louis, you can’t enter at night unless you look into the camera. If your face is obscured by a mask, face or hood, the door stays locked. If the camera gets a good look at you, it lets you in. The store is piloting a facial recognition system designed by a trio of current and former police officers who decided they’d rather prevent crimes than investigate them, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Their company, Blue Line Technology, has installed cameras with its software at several places around town. It hopes to sell between 300 and 400 systems this year.
Tech giants including Apple, Facebook and Google are in the facial-recognition business, and the founders of Blue Line say their security focus and their patent-pending software, which can process an image and match it to a database in a split second, should provide a lucrative niche. The company says that a corporate data center, for example, could bolster security by adding facial recognition. The cameras would prevent someone with a stolen, forged or borrowed ID card from gaining access. A day care center or hospital nursery could allow parents and staff in while keeping unauthorized strangers out. St. Louis Post-Dispatch NY Inmate Says Gov. Cuomo Inspired His Beating An inmate who says he was beaten and suffocated by guards after two prisoners escaped from an upstate prison in 2015 is filing a lawsuit contending that Gov. Andrew Cuomo personally incited his attackers, the New York Daily News reports. Patrick Alexander, 36, says after fellow convicted murderers David Sweat and Richard Matt cut their way out of their cells à la “The Shawshank Redemption,” Cuomo visited his nearby cell and taunted and cursed at him during a “photo op.” Cuomo sarcastically told Alexander the noise from the escape “must have kept you awake with all that cutting,” the lawsuit claims. “Let me guess, you don’t know f—-ing nothing,” the governor told him and gave him “a tough guy look,” the lawsuit claims.
Alexander claims he knew nothing about the escape. “A few hours later, Alexander was brutally interrogated, beaten and suffocated by correction officers concerned and angered that their own incompetence and corruption might be exposed,” his lawsiuit claims. In addition to Cuomo, the lawsuit names correction officers and state troopers as defendants. “We feel that Cuomo indirectly green-lighted correction officers to abuse and assault inmates in order to quickly identify the location of the escapees,” said Alexander’s lawyer, Leo Glickman. “This is simply baseless and bizarre,” said Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi. New York Daily News | |
| | On every business day, The Crime Report (TCR) and Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provide a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with Internet links, commentary, and New & Notable research in the field. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Langeloth Foundation and the Urban Institute. Today's report was prepared by Ted Gest and Victoria Mckenzie. Please send comments or questions to victoria@thecrimereport.org. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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